Importance Of State Capacity Research Articles

Assessing State Resilience: Lynching and Its Ramifications on State Credit in the United States

ABSTRACTThe importance of state capacity and institutional quality has received significant attention within the academic literature. This is especially true as it relates to the protection of property rights and, ultimately, the role it plays in economic development. This study adds to this literature by considering how lynching activity across US states impacts sovereign credit. Given that lynching tends to be associated with weak public‐sector institutions, limited‐access social orders, and the weak protection of individual and property rights, we posit that as lynchings increase so too will bond yields. The analysis covers the period 1883–1920 and find support that state borrowing costs rose as lynching activity increased. The results are robust to a number of specifications, demographic groups, and regions. Implications are discussed.

Evolution of government and market under China’s reform era: through the perspective of state capacity

There are two main stream theories explaining China’s rapid economic development in the reform era: new institutionalism and developmental state theory. Realizing the weaknesses of two main stream theories and based on China’s unique experience as both a transitional economy and developing economy that experienced rapid industrialization and marketization, scholars also developed other theories with some revisions of the above two mainstream theories. While these theories have very different focuses, they agree on the importance of state capacity. The author argues that the Chinese Communist Party composes the institutional foundation of state capacities to promote economic growth and build market institutions, and discusses three important aspects of how party strength and state capacity helped the market transition, government restructuring and enterprise reform. The future challenges are discussed in the conclusion.

The Importance of State Capacity in the Fight Against Corruption

This study examines the importance of state capacity in the fight against corruption. Corruption is an important problem in the exercise of political power. For this reason, good governance requires the fight against corruption with more transparency in the relationship between the private sector and politicians/administrators, efficient and effective bureaucracy, clear legal frameworks, and strengthening institutions that implement independent power control. In other words, an effective fight against corruption and good governance requires a strong state capacity. State capacity is an important characteristic of statehood. In this context, the execution of the security function of a state -(monopoly) control of the means of violence and effective law enforcement- is a prerequisite for overcoming political and social problems. After all, a state is characterized as a strong state if it can ensure security throughout the country and take and implement political decisions and has capacity to turn public will into action. The argument of the study addresses the meaning and importance of the state capacity in the effective, efficient, and coordinated implementation of public policies and in the fight against administrative and social problems such as corruption.

Immigrants’ Contribution to Development in the Global South: Comparing Policy Responses to Venezuelan Immigration in Peru and Argentina

By April 2021, Venezuela’s multidimensional crisis had led over 5.6 million of the country’s citizens to emigrate, mostly across South America. This chapter offers a comparative analysis of national policy responses to Venezuelan immigration in Argentina and Peru from a development perspective in the period 2015‒2020. Although the government of each country recognised the potential of disproportionate numbers of highly skilled Venezuelan immigrants, Argentina has been more successful than Peru in offering them legal pathways to immigration and incorporating them into the formal labour market. Our key argument is that Argentina has been able to foster the integration of Venezuelans—in terms of granting regular status, validating academic and professional degrees and providing access to basic social services—for three reasons: first, the lower overall numbers and higher socio-economic characteristics of the migrants; second, Argentina’s progressive legislative immigration framework; and third, the prominent role of civil society actors lobbying for immigrants and pushing for more inclusive public policies. In the case of Peru, the rapid increase in numbers of immigrants has led to a surge in xenophobic public opinion, which has generated pressure to implement non-inclusive policies. The country’s new immigration law lacks institutional consolidation, and there is no strong civil society to act as a counterweight to restrictive policy developments. The chapter contributes to the literature on the migration–development nexus, pointing out the importance of state capacity and civil society when thinking about migration and development in the global South.

The moral and political economy of the pandemic in Bangladesh: Weak states and strong societies during Covid-19.

As the Covid-19 pandemic spread in 2020, the government of Bangladesh ordered a lockdown and promised a program of relief. Citizens complied at first, but soon returned to economic and social life; relief proved slow and uncertain, and citizens could not rely on government assistance. The government tacitly and then officially permitted the lockdown to end, despite a rising Covid-19 caseload. This article draws on theories about state capacity to make and enforce policy to understand why Bangladesh proved unable to sustain a lockdown deemed necessary to contain the pandemic in this densely populated, low income country. Drawing on original qualitative mobile phone-based research in six selected communities, this article examines how the state exercised its capacities for coercion, control over lower factions within political society, and sought to preserve and enhance its legitimacy. It concludes that despite a) the growth in the capacity of the Bangladeshi state in the past decade and b) strong political incentives to manage the pandemic without harm to economic wellbeing, the pressures to sustain legitimacy with the masses forced the state and its frontline actors to tolerate lockdown rule-breaking, conceding that the immediate livelihood needs of the poor masses overrode national public health concerns. Chronically unable to enforce its authority over local political elites, the state failed to ensure a fair and timely distribution of relief. The weakness of the Bangladeshi state contrasts with the strength of widely shared ‘moral economy’ views within society, which provided powerful ethical and political justification for citizens’ failures to comply with the lockdown, and for officials’ forbearance in its enforcement. The Covid-19 pandemic highlights both the importance of state capacity in managing novel shocks from within the global system, and the challenges in settings where weak states are embedded in strong societies.